Clear discussion: Don't buy bank shares for 20 years.
(This is an article I wrote for Financial Weekly on June 65438+1October 65438+June 6 today, which also reflects my concerns about the recent market trends. )
Inadvertently, the A-share market made a big mistake on the road of listing bank shares. If it is not corrected in time, it will inevitably lead to major long-term risks.
An article I wrote in the Financial Weekly at the end of August entitled "The Weaknesses of Banking Stocks" was attacked by some people afterwards. Generally speaking, I don't understand the operation of banks, and there are serious mistakes in judging the performance of domestic listed banks by relying too much on the central bank and the government.
Yes, I know very little about how commercial banks control credit risk internally, why they pay small interest to savings customers for a long time but charge high interest after becoming residential mortgage loan customers one day, and how to treat illegal customers and other internal operational issues. But I have always been concerned about accounting standards, and I am familiar with the capital standards followed by the banking industry, which is actually different from the accounting standards of ordinary enterprises.
There is no doubt that the performance of domestic commercial banks is too dependent on government credit.
Critics say that although the interest income of debt investment with government credit, such as treasury bonds and central bank bills, accounts for more than 70% of the operating profit of domestic commercial banks on average, these assets are not cost-free. After deducting the corresponding interest payment costs, the proportion of their net interest income to operating profit will be greatly reduced, so that the so-called statement that the performance of domestic commercial banks is too dependent on government credit cannot be established.
In the face of the above criticism, I am skeptical about the common sense of critics in the banking industry. According to the Basel Accord, the assets of banks are divided according to the risk weight. Among them, in the final analysis, the risk weight of assets with government credit such as national debt and central bank bills is 0, while the risk weight of all commercial loans is 100%. In accounting, this means that the former does not need bad debt provision, while the latter must confirm the corresponding bad debt provision according to the five-level classification.
In other words, in view of the average non-performing loan ratio of domestic commercial banks far exceeding 5%, the bad debt reserve ratio (the ratio of established bad debt reserve to non-performing loans) should normally reach100%; At present, most domestic commercial banks use more than 40% interest-bearing debts for the above-mentioned assets with government credit, and have not made provision for bad debts or other impairment provisions for these assets; In view of the fact that the net rate of return obtained by domestic commercial banks from the above-mentioned assets with government credit is much higher than the deposit-loan spread after provision, once the support of government credit is lost, the profitability of commercial banks will inevitably be hit hard for the consideration of asset risk weight and bad debt provision, and it is no exaggeration to say that losses may occur.
Capital adequacy ratio also depends on government credit.
The so-called bank capital adequacy ratio is the proportion of capital to the total weighted risk assets according to different definitions. Obviously, the higher the numerator value, the smaller the denominator value and the higher the capital adequacy ratio.
In this case, regardless of numerator, if low-risk weighted assets (not to mention assets with zero risk weight) account for the higher proportion of total risk-weighted assets, the smaller denominator in the calculation formula of total risk-weighted assets or capital adequacy ratio will inevitably lead to the improvement of capital adequacy ratio.
Therefore, while we must admit that the performance of domestic commercial banks is too dependent on government credit, we must also pay attention to the problem that the capital adequacy ratio of the banking industry is too dependent on government credit.
In recent years, the rapid increase of capital adequacy ratio of domestic commercial banks is largely due to the fact that more and more assets have been invested in assets with government credit, so that the denominator has become relatively small. In addition, the funds raised by the listing of bank shares have greatly expanded the core capital scale of commercial banks.
There is no evidence that the post-industrial economy needs a huge banking system.
Why does China, whose economic aggregate is only one-ninth of that of the United States, have three world banking giants in a short time? This kind of good thing in the eyes of others is not good in my eyes.
After all, the post-industrial economy does not need a huge banking system, or having a huge banking system is just a feature of the primary industrial economy. As we all know, the current banking system in the United States is composed of small and medium-sized commercial banks, at least relative to the scale of non-bank enterprises. International experience shows that with the gradual transformation of enterprise financing from indirect financing to direct financing, the role of banking in the financial services of the whole society will tend to weaken and be replaced by developed capital markets. Think about it, does this mean that the existing excessively large domestic banking system will not grow with GDP year-on-year, so we should look down on the growth of banking stocks for a long time?
Some people may think that relaxing the restrictions on foreign investment of commercial banks and allowing them to invest excess liquidity in the stock market can avoid the passivation of their performance growth, and of course it is enough to realize the sustainable development of commercial banks. Recently, it is indeed reported that ICBC has started to enter the IPO market. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than this news.
Intriguingly, financial regulators have always stressed that debt investment in stocks is the most dangerous financial activity, but they forgot this warning when bank funds directly entered the stock market. In any case, the bank is the operating entity with the highest debt ratio, so high that even if a customer has bad loans, it may swallow all the net assets. In any case, the risk of the stock market is far greater than that of the credit market. Allowing commercial banks to invest in stocks is equivalent to amplifying their capital risk. In any case, the basic lesson of the Japanese stock market bubble is that banks hold a large number of stocks.
Since the late 1990s, in order to enhance the profitability of the banking industry, the ban that banks are not allowed to hold national debt has been broken. Therefore, domestic banks hold a large number of national debt, resulting in serious financial overdraft. In the long run, this is a very serious problem in the domestic financial system, and the key is to increase the pressure of long-term fiscal budget balance. Now, in order to take into account the profitability of the banking industry, we should prevent the cross-risks of the financial industry from being ignored. Do you intend to digest the excess liquidity of commercial banks by allowing them to invest in stocks? This is too short-sighted.
The biggest risk is that the concentration of bank shares has been seriously overdrawn.
In fact, even if commercial banks are not explicitly allowed to invest in stocks, the cross-risk between the banking industry and the stock market has been formed and is very high.
Recently, I was unwell, so I asked my old friend Zhang Xindong, editor-in-chief of Chuangfuzhi magazine, to help me collect a data about the proportion of bank shares in the total share capital of A-share listed companies. As expected, by the end of September, the total share capital of 14 A-share listed banks accounted for nearly 50% of the total share capital of all A-share listed companies.
The banking departmentalism, or selfish behavior orientation, of the domestic financial industry is exposed here. As we all know, there is an insurmountable rule in the banking supervision regulations: the loan ratio of a single customer shall not exceed 10% of all loans. Its purpose is to prevent the supreme risk of swallowing up all the net assets because of a customer's loan loss, which is the so-called loan concentration risk, or the risk of putting too many eggs in the same basket. Then, while the listing of bank shares raises huge funds for commercial banks and thus greatly increases the capital adequacy ratio, can we avoid talking about the risk of equity concentration brought by the stock market? This makes the China stock market look like a market dominated by banks, and other listed companies are only the foil of listed banks.
What is even more disturbing is that almost everyone knows that the listing of banking stocks will accelerate in the future, including not only another giant, Agricultural Bank, but also dozens of city commercial banks and even more rural credit cooperatives. In this way, the proportion of bank shares in the total share capital of all listed companies is bound to further increase. This is incredible!
Based on the above factors, I have to seriously suggest that the process of listing bank shares should be stopped as soon as possible, and enough time and energy should be spent to re-examine the risks of listing bank shares. Never forget what Chen Yun said: We should spend more than 90% of our time understanding the situation and less than 10% of our time making decisions.
In view of the complexity of banking stocks, it is believed that it will inevitably have a series of impacts on the A-share market, including stock index futures.
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At present, he is the president of Economic Observation Institute, an economic researcher of China Institute of National Conditions and Development, an academic consultant of New Fortune, the executive director of China Securities and Futures Magazine, and the financial consultant of the annual report of listed companies in the "China Securities" column of CCTV.